Language…
15 users online: deported, Domokun007, eltiolavara9, GiraffeKiller, Golden Yoshi, gothic251, h.carrell, koffe190, Maw, MeteorSmasher4, OEO6, OrangeRock57, Raccoon Sam, Rykon-V73, The_Uber_Camper - Guests: 261 - Bots: 352
Users: 64,795 (2,375 active)
Latest user: mathew

[ACCEPTED] Mario & La Sphère de Toad 2 [Demo 2] v0.6 by Aurel509

Refer to this review: http://smwc.me/1139284



Mario & La Sphère de Toad 2 [Demo 2] v0.6
Authors: Aurel509
Demo: Yes
Length: 26 exit(s)
Difficulty: Normal
Description: "Bowser has stolen the magic of the Sphere Hurry up before it reduces the world into chaos."

Download Link: IPS

----------------------------------------------------------------

Overall:
Levels have no immediate fatal faults that warrant automatic removal - like submitted ROM, bad ROM, exits to Level 0, etc. Levels play fine from beginning to end (including secondary entrances and exits). Graphics are fair for the most part, a lot of it is adequate nothing that displays glitches or is outstanding for the most part. Music is fine for the most part, nothing strange or out of the ordinary.

Level Notes:
- Extra Night: Nothing.

- Dark Forest: Be careful with the number of enemies that are present in this level in the same screen. These can cause massive slowdown. Key is a little bit too low in terms of height -- can be reached from below.

- Black Rain: See Dark Forest, too much slowdown.

- Sunrise To The Sea: Nothing.

- Castle 1: Mainly there's way too many jumps that are BMD (Big Mario Discrimination). See Photo below. Also the whole level AD feels anti-climatic and boring for the most part since the screen moves very slowly and it's almost impossible to get hurt unless you accidentally run into a spike. Too many power-ups before the boss.



- Grassland Plains: Again too many sprites in certain areas that just cause overload and slowdown.

- Desert Plains: Green Patooie Plant is not located well. Getting the 3 turtle shells into the Plant is difficult because they are located such that screen has to be moved. Unless you have a Cape which kills it automatically or just take a hit which will make this a lot easier. Also too much slowdown again with the turtles.

- Epic Platform: Color schemes are a little bit bad (cutoff ropes + colors of trees/platforms/pipes). "!" Blocks can be maneuvered around if you have a Cape.

- Grassland Plains 2: Nothing.

- Koopa Beach: No Power-Ups at all in this level. Pretty much all Koopas for the most part and nothing else.

- Castle #2: Cutoff with the lightning against the bricks. Also this annoying jump (Photo below) that has BMD. Chains of the Ball and Chains sometimes can be walked through while others cannot. Kirby Boss (not related to the hack) seems to be spammable to being attacked and also goes above the ground.



- Snow Hills: Too many Koopas in one area (Screen A).

- Frozen Cave: Again too many enemies in the same area (Screen D).

- Fast And Slippery: Nothing.

- Castle #3: Spike Pillars are too hard to see and tell because they are behind the FG and are colored the same thing. Boss area seems a little too small and too easy to get hit especially with Thwomp going at max speed.

- Lake Poisoned #1 (Change to Poison/Poisoned Lake): Nothing.

- Pipe Bazaar: These kinds of problems irk me like the BMD.



- STAR ROAD (Change Please): Nothing, except needs a name change.

- Castle #4: Add a Side Exit to exit this level.

- Green Switch: Nothing, but it doesn't seem to appear at all in this game.

- Blue Switch: Nothing, but it also doesn't seem to appear at all either just like the Green Switch.

Verdict:
For the most part, this is a decent start. However there are things that do need some more work. For me, denied at the moment but leaving open for review.
Cstutor89, please let me publish the corrected version of the bugs and cut-offs
Layout by Koopster
Ohh~ I do remember this hack, nice to see a new demo of it. While I don't see much changes from the previous levels, I kinda liked the new ones, but let's go in order as always.

The level design is nice: your hack, as I said in my previous review, gives the player a nice challenge overall. Some parts may be bad, repetitive and boring, but I see the overall mostly good, good job with it. In my older review I said that there's a difficulty spike, but right now I don't see any...I guess you slightly changed a little of the older levels then? Either that, or my memory failed~ >w<

The aesthetic is very good: nice mix of GFX and mostly good palettes. Ya, "mostly", because some of them feel out of place, or, in other cases, just wrong. I'd suggest you to work on them a bit more, since some of them do look a bit ugly from my point of view.

As misc issues, I find that slowdown is less frequent, but still there in certain levels. Not anything big, but you can still do something to make it less frequent I think.

As for the difficulty, guess normal suits it best.

In conclusion, I would accept the hack: nice design, mostly good aesthetics and so on. Sure worth to be in hack section~

+1
Ok I just got done playing the demo and oh boy was it something. Playing something this hard with a keyboard right after playing a super easy hack was kinda strange but I digress. The hack is very beautiful and has nice music. I like the way it saves after every level* but I think it could use Auto-Save instead. The levels are very generous with power-ups but severely lack in the 1ups department aside from a few levels. Time for some IL reviewing:
Extra Night
My first reaction was literally "This is the first level?". It's not even the hardest level of the hack! It would fit better in another world with a level like Black Rain.
Dark Forest
Really dig the ambiance you set here. But the enemy placement is super rude, considering this is the second level of the game. Especially that lotus at the beginning. I just want my power up, guy! Not a fan of the secret exit though. You could try to make it a bit more obvious.
Green Switch
What is the song? I recognize it from somewhere. Compared to the 2 previous levels, it's WAY easier.
Black Rain
Out of the forest and into... the sky? at night? The first world really lacks continuity and it really doesn't fit to the map. As I said, it should be in it's Night World with Extra Night or something. It's a decent level for water platforming.
Sunrise to the sea
Way too hard for World 1
Castle 1
Close to rage quit #1: Underwater corridor with Thwomps. I seriously came close to breaking my keyboard there. In the spike elevator. You get the Layer 2 glitch with the climbable fences. I killed the boss by accident because I stayed on its head. Tells you enough about the difficulty of it I guess.
Grassland Plains 1

No.
The Warp feels really weird btw. Out of a corridor and onto....a grass tower? What? The random floating landmasses are unnecessary also. Doesn't save upon completion.
Desert Plains
There's random smoke popping out of nowhere near the piranha plant. It also regens if you get too far and can be killed with a cape. The bloons can also be climbed on if you jump below them. You don't even have to jump through to the top to make it, you just, like, warp up there.
Epic Platforms
Sprite limit glitches here and there. Most notable near chucks and near the midway bar. The time limit is also very severe if you're just trying to explore the level. It has very good potential though.
Grassland Plains 2
Koopa can get in the springboard hole, causing double-sprites glitches. Exiting the sub-level is celebrated by having a near-undodgeball chargin chuck run into you but other than that, the level is pretty good.
Koopa Beach *Favourite Level*
Like a day at the beach, it's super relaxing after all those hard as nails levels. Really a breath of fresh air before going into the castle. Good job! It doesn't save though
Castle 2
Pretty easy compared to the rest of the world. Boss is even easier.
Snow Hills 1
The sprites made me laugh so hard! So cute! Minor glitch: when you get a coin, the score sprite for it is a little bit glitched out. The level is really good but it doesn't save sadly.
Frozen Cave
Decent level, except for the fact that the secret exit is SUPER NOT OBVIOUS. At first I thought it was a glitch but then I saw the keyhole and thought "Yep.......nothing to say here".Chucks are getting annoying btw. Doesn't save.
Bonus
THANK YOU SO MUCH
Fast and slippery
I AM trying to go fast but there's too much shit in the way! Don't put a keyhole in midair please, I've died more time to that than I died to the timer. I seriously hope that's not really where the secret exit leads because I'm gonna be very disappointed if so. Doesn't save.
Castle 3
It's super hard to tell what's solid and what's not. The level is decent otherwise. The boss can get surprisingly hard though if you take too long and if you get a bad RNG.
Lake poisoned 1
Poisoned Lake*. It's a pretty good level but at the bridge part, instead of having holes where there are no ropes, how about having the opposite; a rope but no bridge.
Pipe Bazaar
The time limit is pretty severe here too. The level is decent overall. Doesn't save.
STAR ROAD or Mushroom Forest I guess
It has way too many enemies everywhere and you can easily skip through it if you have a cape. Doesn't save.
Blue Switch
You don't really need a Reset Door, guy.

So overall the level design is pretty good but it abuses Chucks way too much. It also could use a difficulty curve. It starts hard and it ends very hard. Make it so it's normal in the beginning than it escalates to very hard in the end instead.
Verdict:Accepted
Difficulty:Hard
Tested using SNES9x without save-states.

+1
Well, I still not able to change the file so that I can put the corrected version.
The review of my hack falls into oblivion.#tb{:(}
Layout by Koopster
The hack has been accepted. However, feel free to send this corrected version if you wish, although it'll pass for the normal process of moderation.
Thank you for having accepted my demo.
PS: corrected version posted
If you wish you can moderate.#tb{:)}
Layout by Koopster
Thanks Mirann. Wanted to leave this thread open just to see if there were more reviews than just the 2 above.

Gave the 2 reviews above a "+1". :)
Permanent link to IPS - UPDATED!

Not much has changed since the last review I've made for this hack. I still find this one to be underrated in general, because it's a really well made one. The level design in general is well done, nothing I'd complain at all. Aesthetics were okay for most part, although I think you could do some better palette work in your levels. Their length was also reasonable.

Two issues I want to point out; Please apply this patch to prevent this from happening. And this [1] [2] [3] [4] should be reworked in the level. Change the sprite header, or remove the rotating platform from this level. These aside, I didn't find other bugs. These were fixed in the update the author has sent.

Difficulty would be Normal.
@Hack author: If you want to submit an update to fix the last issue I mentioned, contact me and I'll free the submission.


+1'd users:
- Wakana-chan
- Everest
- Jack-kun
This one again, even if minor, I do see some changes.

Mostly, I can see you changed a few sections here and there. I think the level design got better, since some of the boring parts have been fixed. Said this, I think the level design as overall here is still good, very nice and challenging on the right point. Nothing more to add, except that I highly suggest you to make the "elevation part" of the Castle 1 less boring.

Aesthetics are on the same state as before mostly, though I noticed you decorated certain levels more, which is good. The Kirby battle has a row of glitched graphics in the bottom, this is the only advice I can give here, as well as reviewing some palettes.

Besides the ones said by Mirann, I can't find any misc issues, so I guess that if you could fix those it would be great.

The difficulty keeps normal: some sections got a bit more challengy, but the overall still balances to normal.

I'd accept this hack: a nice one, sure worth to stay in the hacks section~
(yeah I said this in my previous review too~ >w<)
Back to this hack it seems.

I do remember playing this however I feel that a full review would be better in this case. I did not review the previous version anyway so I am writing a longer review this time. The feeling in this hack is quite positive for me overall although there are a few minor areas that I feel could use some improvements. Starting off with the level design, I am impressed with it overall. There are interesting levels with unique concepts in each of the levels which is good for me. Some of the levels seem to be thought out well enough despite certain exotic structures and designs. The difficulty of the hack seems overall to be quite impressive as well. The difficulty seems to vary at certain points but there isn't really too much of a spike for the most part. In some levels, I can see great sprite usage and I find that amazing for this hack. It kept me interested throughout the hack. There are many parts that I can go into and describe quite accurately but it is better to say that overall, it really seems you have put quite a lot of effort into this hack. I do find some choices in design further down in the hack questionable as there seem to be ever so slight repetitiveness and boring areas. However, it isn't a major issue for me. Good job overall!

The aesthetics overall seem to be fine to me though they are not exactly my type of style. They do not seem downright bad though so I suppose it is acceptable for this hack to pass. There are unusual or odd palettes from time to time but none of them seem horrible to me so that is good enough for that field. Generally, most things in terms of aesthetics are fine enough. I do recall seeing glitched graphics in a certain area however it isn't really major enough to be notable or bring down the entire hack. The overworld is quite neat and generally seems good enough. I cannot say there is a problem even with the trivial things you have added such as symbols on the level names on the overworld. Good job overall! Everything else seems to follow this consistently with very minor glitches occurring from time to time (they are not worth the mention here in my opinion - remember to get testers though for any future hacks you make). Overall, good job! Nothing else to say for this part despite it being short.

Difficulty: Despite some hard parts, the difficulty in general can be described as Normal due to the design choices you have made.

I would say that this hack is ready to be accepted. Any of the issues overall seem to be minor enough so I will not really hold them against you. Well done on making this hack!
Ah this hack again, while I do remember playing it before, I can't really recall the details, so... not really sure if something improved or not.
But regardless of what the previous version was like, I sure do like this one.

Most of the levels were build nicely. Giving the player and overall fair game, ven though there were some blind jumps here and there. You kept things interesting throughout this hack. Gotta admit though, I'm not too happy about some of the secret exits. Like in that one level with the green time blocks. I have to struggle to get the key, the keyhole being right in front of the goal, and the exit itself just closing a loop on the OW. Gotta be honest with you, I rewinded and took the normal exit #smw{;)}

I found 4 instances that I actually had "problems" with.
[1] Coins inviting me to jump to my death
[2] The goomba seems to be going where Mario is with increasing speed, so if I jump on him, he does his best to stay below me so I can finish him as quickly as possible
[3][4] key-P-switch?
[5] those berries don't look like they are in the background. Maybe change the palette a little or something.

Also, I lied.
I do see some improvment in this from the last time I played it :P
Overall this is a great looking hack with lots of work put into it. Kinda sad that the demo ended in the middle of the 4th caslte but, what can you do.


Verdict: Accepted. Seems like a good hack to me.
Difficulty: I'd say an average of Normal.
Anime statistic on MyAnimeList:
400 animes completed ✓
6000 episodes completed ✓
100 Days completed ✓
... what even am I doing with my life?
JackTheSpades I have considered your details to fix bugs but

Originally posted by JackTheSpades
[3] [4] P-key-switch?

WTF, I have not this bug me, well I then remove the switch (in addition I find it a bit useless)


EDIT: Thanks you, Mirann, Wakana, Everest and you have accepted my demo
#ab{:D}
Layout by Koopster